Any Given Doomsday (The Phoenix Chronicles)

by Lori Handeland

  “Not in the usual sense,” Sawyer continued. “True em-paths have the ability to put themselves into another’s shoes. They feel what that person feels; they empathize. But you put yourself into another’s shoes literally. You can take on their supernatural abilities.”

  I blinked. “Because you can shift, so can I?”

  “Yes,” he said simply.

  I rubbed my forehead. “This is gonna suck.”

  “I’d think you’d be happy about it. You’ll be the most powerful seer on the planet.”

  “Goody,” I muttered, dropping my hand. “I’m going to explode with power if I get some from every supernatural entity I see.”

  He was shaking his head before I finished. “You’ll only take on a power once. If you have it already, you won’t absorb more of it. And you don’t get their power by seeing them.”

  “How then?”

  He lifted his eyebrows and spread his hands.

  “Touching?”

  He shook his head again, but the curve of his lips told me what I needed to know, and my heart thudded so loudly my chest ached.

  “Fuck me,” I muttered.

  “Exactly.”

  Silence settled over us once again as I tried to absorb this new knowledge. I breathed deeply until my heart slowed.

  “Just so I’m clear,” I said, “1 absorbed your abilities when you screwed me.”

  He didn’t blink at the dual meaning to my words. “Yes.”

  “And you knew this was going to happen?”

  “I was fairly certain.”

  “How could you be fairly certain?” My nose wrinkled, and my voice mocked on the last two words.

  “I can recognize psychic talents in others.”

  “How convenient.”

  He wasn’t bothered by my scorn. I suspected he’d had enough of it heaped on him over the centuries to become immune. It wasn’t as if he cared what I thought. It wasn’t as if I mattered to him beyond a means to the end of saving the world.

  If I wasn’t involved in this mess—if I hadn’t been literally screwed for the greater good—I might think him heroic. But I was involved, and what I thought was that he was a manipulative asshole.

  “Take it back,” I said.

  “No.”

  “I don’t want any of your abilities.”

  “I don’t care.”

  We went silent. What else was there to say?

  “Do you know who my parents are?” I blurted.

  He blinked, once, slowly. “Why would I?”

  “I got my abilities from somewhere, I just figured…”

  “That you were a breed? Or perhaps they were?”

  I shrugged.

  “Could be. I’m afraid I don’t know.”

  “Who would?”

  He looked away, then quickly back. “I don’t know that either.”

  Was he lying? Who could tell? Certainly not me.

  I got back to business. According to Sawyer, I should now be able to do what Ruthie had—know the Nephilim’s human face, understand what they were so that I could give orders to kill them. I should receive this information… on a wing and a prayer? I wasn’t sure.

  “Will I hear a voice from God?” He cut me a quick, disgusted glance. “I’m serious. How does this work?”

  “Close your eyes.” I did. “Now, open,” he whispered.

  Images of the last time he’d said that word tumbled through my mind. His mouth on my breast, his tongue against me, his body deep inside, pushing, pulsing, making me—

  My eyes snapped open. Sawyer stood too close, body aligned to mine. I could feel his erection, straining toward me through several layers of clothing. For an instant I swayed forward, brushing us together. My breath caught, my body tightened. His pupils dilated, the black driving out every vestige of gray.

  “What did you see?” he asked.

  I needed to break the connection, but that would only prove to him how much he affected me. So I stayed right where I was.

  “Nothing.”

  His palms cupped the curve of my waist, pulling our lower bodies into alignment. “Maybe we need to try again.”

  He flexed his hips, sparks flared at the edge of my vision. My head began to drop back; his mouth began to descend. All I had to do was let him…

  I brought my knee up. He countered the move easily. Although his preternatural speed was supposedly only available in animal form, he was unnaturally quick as a human.

  He still held my waist. Our faces were so close our breath mingled. “Don’t touch me.” I lifted his hands, stepped out of his embrace, then dropped them as if they were crawling with lice.

  He continued to watch me, his eyes still spookily black despite the blazing light of the sun.

  “I want to leave New Mexico,” I said. “Today.”

  “Until you can do what you’re supposed to be doing, you’ll stay right here.”

  “You already did your thing.” Me. “And I’m still blocked.”

  “They say the sixth time’s the charm.”

  “Tough. Find another way. You can’t sleep with everyone who comes here for help.”

  “I can’t?”

  I narrowed my eyes. His face gave nothing away; it never did, and I wondered—

  Was that why Jimmy hated him so?

  I jerked my mind from the thought, and turned away, but Sawyer followed. “Ruthie gave her life so we could win this war.”

  “She gave nothing; her life was taken from her.”

  “I don’t think so. Ruthie would have known her time was coming. Being Ruthie, she would have known exactly how and when. She could have prevented it if she’d wanted to.”

  I spun back around. “Why didn’t she?”

  “Her death was a declaration of war.”

  “The prophesy,” I murmured. “The final battle.”

  “Yes. But in dying she made a declaration of her own. It was a great joke, really.”

  “Yeah, I was laughing my ass off when I found her in a puddle of her own blood.”

  His lips tightened, but he went on. “The leader of the darkness thought he was making us weaker by taking our leader, but instead he made us stronger.”

  “How so?”

  “By dying, Ruthie became eternal. She guides us through you. And you’ll become more powerful than she could ever have been.”

  I didn’t feel powerful. I felt, again, like a failure. However, this time, failing wouldn’t just get my partner killed; failing would probably end the world as we knew it. But, hey, no pressure.

  I took one step away from Sawyer, needing space, a little time, only to freeze at the sound that swirled around the clearing.

  The furious hiss of a rattlesnake.

  I looked down. One was coiled near enough to strike. Where had it come from?

  “Get back.” Sawyer was all business again. His erection appeared to have deflated at the sight of the rattlesnake. Understandable. I thought I might wet myself.

  “Can’t,” I murmured, trying my best not to move anything but my lips, and those not too much either. The word came out both shaky and muffled.

  The sound of cloth sliding across skin caught my attention. Sawyer had dropped his breechclout and wrapped his hand around his limp penis.

  Now? I thought incredulously. But a single touch and he shimmered, then shifted. His body was there one second and gone the next. Like Wile E. Coyote who drops off the cliff—now you see him, now you don’t. The only thing left in the suddenly vacant air was a little swirl of current.

  I lowered my gaze. Two rattlesnakes slithered toward each other far too close to my feet. I tensed, unwilling to move and draw attention to myself, even when one of them scooted over the toe of my boot.

  I’d never seen a rattlesnake, let alone two. I was a city girl. Did snakes fight? What would I do if they did? What would happen if the Sawyer snake lost and the winner came after me?

  I’d hide, but where? Inside the hogan, I’d be trapped.

  Th
e water? Not much better. I was pretty certain snakes could swim.

  Up a tree? Perhaps. Unfortunately, all the trees were on the other side of the snakes.

  The two met, rising up, bodies bobbing more like cobras than rattlesnakes. Their triangular heads shot at each other. I flinched. But instead of striking, they wrapped their necks around and around, twining together for an instant before breaking apart.

  I wasn’t sure which one was which, until the sun seemed to spark off the nearest, making it shimmer shining silver. The next instant it grew, lengthened, rose toward the sun and burst free a man.

  “It’s for you,” Sawyer said.

  Chapter 27

  Sawyer grabbed my hand and dragged it to his penis.

  “Hey!” I pulled back. “Do I seem like I have a burning desire to jerk you off?”

  His eyes flared, the most anger I’d seen from him in ages. “He wants to tell you something.”

  “Who is he?”

  “A snake.”

  “Just a snake. Nothing extra?”

  “No.”

  “Then how can he tell me anything?”

  “That’s why you need to shift. The only way to talk to the animals is to become one.”

  “I don’t want to talk to him.”

  Impatience flashed across his features. “Grow up. This is your life now. Deal with it.”

  He snatched my hand again, and from his grip, I knew he wouldn’t let go regardless of what I said, or how I struggled.

  I loosened the tight fist I’d made the first time he’d grabbed me. As much fun as it might be, I couldn’t slug him. At least not right now.

  He looked me up, and then down. “It’ll be easier without the clothes.”

  I was starting to see why he favored a breechclout most of the time.

  I sighed; he let me go. I stripped, then met his eyes. “This is the only way?”

  Stupid question. I’d touched the wolf tattoo the first time I’d shifted. Sawyer had touched himself to become the snake. To become one myself, touching was involved, and since I didn’t have a tattoo…

  He gave a sharp nod, face set, as if he didn’t want me to touch him any more than I wanted to. Because of that expression, I probably grabbed him a little too hard, squeezed a little too much.

  How many times did I need him to show me that he’d only been with me because he’d had to be? What difference did it make? It wasn’t as if I loved Sawyer any more than he loved me. I’d only loved one man in my life, and he was as untrustworthy as this one.

  I gave myself up to the chill, the heat, the wash of silver flowing through me, the pull of another entity that came from outside myself as well as within.

  Beneath my fingers, Sawyer’s skin warmed; I could feel his pulse in my palm, beating in tandem with mine. I stroked him and heard the warning rattle of his snake.

  Light exploded, blinding me. The wind blew past me as I fell from a great height. I tried to catch myself, but I no longer had arms or legs. Instead the ground met my belly, my back bent in ways my back had never bent before.

  I saw the world from a different angle, in an entirely different way. I couldn’t hear, not really.

  Did snakes have ears? I didn’t think so.

  Instead, I sensed vibrations, movement, a wash of heat across my face. Something warm-blooded and small just there. My head swiveled to the right. Beneath that bush, a mouse quivered, black eyes wide, nose twitching in terror, and I liked it.

  Nearby something much larger and equally warm loomed. Sawyer. A man. Not prey. No. He was the only one like me in the world.

  I relished the power to mete out death with one swift attack. I wasn’t angry; I was just… me. My nature was to watch and wait, to sense, to strike when striking was necessary.

  But I also knew, in that other part of me, that I was more. I was Elizabeth. I was a woman most of the time.

  The sensation of movement drew me in another direction, but no warmth there. Cold-blooded, then. The rattler that wanted to talk to me.

  How did I talk to a rattlesnake, even when I was one?

  My companion coiled his body round and round, the movement mesmerizing. The triangular head lifted, darting forward until we were eye to eye.

  Seer.

  The word appeared in my mind, a thought not my own. I waggled my own three-sided head.

  Listen and understand.

  Listen? A bit hard without ears, but I got the concept. There was some kind of telepathy involved here. Maybe all animals had it.

  Telepathy? the voice whispered. What is this?

  Sharing of thoughts.

  Yesssss. I come to share with you the thoughts of all earth’s creatures.

  All?

  The snake zigged one way, then zagged in the other. All who matter. Those who follow the path of good.

  Snakes follow the path of good? Wasn’t there a little incident in a garden?

  The bone-chilling rattle sounded. I wasn’t afraid. I had a rattle of my own. Just thinking of it made my tail buzz, and I got a head rush very much like adrenaline.

  Not all snakes follow the dark man. Are all women as foolish as Eve?

  Point taken.

  Our rattles stopped buzzing.

  You must fight the fight, seer. Only you can thwart the coming end times.

  Why me?

  Who is to know why this one is chosen and that one is not? You have the power, and you must use it.

  What if I don’t want to?

  Then you must live with that choice, or die from it. Only those who truly embrace what they are, who commit to the fight, can succeed.

  And if I can’t? If I fail?

  All will suffer. Not just humans, but beasts as well as breeds. The horrors to come will be as nothing you have known or imagined. You must do whatever it takes to become who you were meant to be, and then you must do whatever necessary to win. There will be sacrifice and pain. There will be choices.

  Choices. I’d never been good at them.

  The rattlesnake’s head lowered. Its body swirled, round and round, unwinding from the coil, then sliding rapidly across the dirt until it disappeared beneath the bush where the mouse had been.

  A scratch, a scramble, then a sharp squeal. Silence.

  The temptation to follow, to see if perhaps there was more than one mouse, was nearly overwhelming. But there was also that large, warm-blooded presence nearby.

  Sawyer. He waited.

  I imagined myself myself, and I was.

  Well, not quite like that—shazam, I was me. But first hot, then cold, silvery light all around. Up I went; there I was.

  Sawyer sat cross-legged next to the fire. He’d removed the rabbit. The scent was heavenly. My stomach contracted so tightly I sneezed. Or perhaps that was just the chill on my naked skin or the remnant of my blood having cooled. Quickly I dressed.

  I joined Sawyer, and without comment, he handed me a plate of meat. I was so hungry I didn’t mind the lack of utensils. I shoveled it in with my fingers, barely chewing. I couldn’t recall anything ever tasting so good.

  When I was finished, he took the plate, rinsed it in the lake, and began to pack what was left of his things.

  I wasn’t sure what to say, so I fell back on the easy questions. “What’s the point to snake shifting? I mean, I understand the power of a wolf, a mountain lion, the shark. But—” I waved vaguely in the direction of his crotch.

  “Did you feel the warmth of prey wash over your face?” he asked. “Did you know, despite the lack of sound, where everything was?”

  “Yes.”

  “Rattlers are pit vipers; we have pits below our nostrils to detect warm-blooded beings. Even in the dark we will find our prey. We can slither into places no other beast can, often undetected, and survive where warm-blooded animals cannot. Just by rattling our tails, we make all living things run.”

  It creeped me out the way he said we, but I was also oddly pleased. I felt connected to him. There was no one like us in the world. />
  I shook off the pull of that connection. I didn’t want it.

  “Is there a way to make all these powers go away?”

  “All of them?” Sawyer sat next to me on the bedroll. “You don’t want the power you were born with?”

  “I never did.”

  “Let me guess. You want to be normal?” I nodded. He sighed. “You aren’t. We aren’t.”

  “Couldn’t I be?”

  “There is such a thing as destiny. You were created the way you were for a reason. You were meant to be who and what you are.”

  “What if I don’t want to be?”

  “Did it occur to you that if you don’t follow your destiny, if you become the normal woman you think you wish to be, the world you wish to be normal in will no longer exist?”

  There was that.

  Hell. The snake had said there’d be choices, but in this case there weren’t. Not really.

  My life had changed at Ruthie’s; I had changed, and fighting against that change was not going to bring my other life back. It hadn’t been all that great anyway.

  Sawyer stared into my face. He must have seen my capitulation, because he stood. “Time to travel down the mountain.”

  “But I haven’t—”

  “You will.”

  His confidence was inspiring, but I still hadn’t had a vision; I wouldn’t be able to tell Jimmy or any of my other DKs what they needed to know. 1 hadn’t wanted this power, but since I appeared to be stuck with it, I should at least be able to use it without getting myself and everyone around me killed.

  “If you’re so smart”—I stood too—”why don’t you have the visions?”

  “Because you were meant to have them. I was meant to show you the way.”

  He’d knelt and begun to roll the bedroll into a cylinder. I put my foot directly in the middle and he stopped, glancing up.

  “You knew that sex would bring me into my power.”

  His lips thinned; he sat back on his heels. The sheepskin, released from the pressure of his blunt, strong fingers, loosened, spilling across his knees in a soft wave.

  “You know that I did.”

  “You do this to save the world.”

  He frowned, confusion spreading across his timeless face.

  I thought of the centuries he’d been alive, the things he’d seen, the people he’d done. I’d been disgusted at first, still was a little, but I could also see how his place in this world might be more difficult than anyone’s.